More immigration still is a bad idea

The idea is around that President Bush will "reward" Mexico for recent successes against the drug gangs by granting new immigration concessions. Bush visits President Vicente Fox this week in Mexico.

Fox wants this badly. Visiting Washington a few weeks ago, Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castañeda said Bush had made commitments to Mexico on immigration, commitments that had not been changed by the Sept. 11 attacks on America.

These two things – drugs and immigration – are not related. If Bush made commitments to Fox on increased immigration and more amnesties, Congress needs to stop him. Congress makes immigration law.

But Fox and Castañeda aren't the only lobbyists at work. Powerful domestic lobbies are busy, and they have lots of money to spread around Washington. If Congress is going to block Castañeda's idea for a so-called "grand bargain" on immigration, it is going to have to buck the monied interests.

Last year's immigration understandings between Bush and Fox were derailed by Sept. 11. Because most of the Arab attackers were here on temporary visas, government became more cautious in issuing visas. More thorough screening is taking place overseas, and – as San Diego well knows – on our ports of entry. We are keeping more undesirables out.

But America's immigration debate has never centered on temporary visa holders – the tourists, students, shoppers and special workers who come here for a few days, months or years and are expected to go home again.

The immigration debate has centered on increasing the number of permanent immigrants to America through a combination of amnesty for the 7 million people already here illegally, a new guest workers program leading to amnesties for millions yet to come and open borders that would increase annual immigration beyond its present 1.1 million people.

That is the "grand bargain."

Higher immigration levels are backed by human rights activists who want more refugees, economists who want bigger markets, immigration lawyers who want more clients, businesses that want cheap workers and politicians who take money from those businesses.

That is a powerful constituency, joined now by Mexico. It has sold both Bush and some leaders in Congress the idea that America should increase annual immigration levels, which already are the highest in history.

If it took Sept. 11 to slow the immigration juggernaut rolling across this country a year ago, that black day will have had one ray of sunlight.

In no area has government proven more feckless over the decades than in immigration. Let the economy boom for a year or two and lobbyists line up in Washington to persuade officials how badly they need foreign workers to keep the boom going.

What the lobbyists really want is foreign workers who will accept lower wages than Americans.

In the 1990s, the lobby proved especially strong. The longest economic boom in history created the longest immigrant lobbyists' queues. Industry pleaded for more service, farm and slaughterhouse workers; more nurses, doctors and engineers.

If they don't come here, they will go to our competitors, said the lobbyists.

Congress was more than glad to oblige in the 1990s with two so-called reform bills that increased special visa quotas, kept legal immigration at record levels and did nothing to stop illegal immigration.

An article I wrote for the magazine Foreign Affairs, which pointed out the economic, social, demographic, fiscal and environmental consequences of our "out-of-control" immigration policy, was immediately attacked by the immigrant lawyers lobby.

America, said one letter to Foreign Affairs, "needs to increase, not decrease, the numbers of legal immigrants, reconfigure immigration categories and vastly improve the delivery of immigration services. It must not let cultural dislikes and hoary notions of immigration dictate its policies."

It's a common tactic of the immigration lobby to accuse its critics of things such as "cultural dislikes and hoary notions." It is an especially popular tactic during economic booms when the public's attention is not on immigration, and the lobby stands the best chance of getting immigration increases through Congress.

Then comes the inevitable economic downturn, and both the American worker and the immigrant who replaced him are on the street. State governments turn to Washington for help in paying the social costs of rising unemployment, only to find that Washington, which created the problem, has lost interest.

During the downturn, the immigrant lobby usually goes to ground. Like the federal government, it doesn't care if states like California have trouble paying the health, welfare and education costs of immigration. It doesn't care if American farm workers and computer engineers are made redundant by lower-wage immigrants.

With Sept. 11 six months old and the economy picking up, the lobbyists are back at it. But increased immigration is as bad an idea as it was before.